


home is wherever i'm with you

by seashrine



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Character Death In Dream, Colorblind Mordecai (Achromatopsia), Comfort, Established Relationship, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, brief angst, post-BL3, the first paragraph is angsty but then it gets really soft and gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-12-21 00:08:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21065483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seashrine/pseuds/seashrine
Summary: Mordecai wakes up in time to watch the sun rise.





	home is wherever i'm with you

**Author's Note:**

> 50th fic in the morbrick tag :-D ladies and gentlemen we got em
> 
> i've been hemming and hawing a lot with this one so i just need to post this and get it out there. no beta we die like men
> 
> some notes:  
\- mordecai has achromatopsia (a.k.a. total colorblindness) and chris and i wrote a thread about it here: https://twitter.com/transbrick/status/1182491618265522177  
\- mordecai wears special lenses to allow him to differentiate and see color better. i'm in the process of writing the fic where he receives these lenses, so stay tuned for that!
> 
> hope you enjoy!!

Sometimes Mordecai wakes up when it’s still dark out. He is sweating and shaking, dreams still in the forefront of his mind. Sometimes they’re memories, dredged up from the recesses of his mind. All the mistakes he’s made, all the things that have gone wrong because of him. Sometimes they’re nightmare scenarios. It was one of those, this time. Alone in the desert, returning to Boomtown to find it raided by bandits. Discovering Tina’s body crumpled in a heap, smaller than she’s ever looked. Brick’s, too, broken beyond recognition.

Then he feels Brick shift in his sleep, curled up against his side, and it breaks him out of his thoughts. It’s dark, but he can see his slack-jawed face pressed against the pillow. The angles of his face are softened by the moonlight pouring in through the open window. Mordecai anchors himself in moment, feeling the sheets on his skin and the warmth of the body beside him. The air is filled with the chirping of crickets and the whistling of a cool wind passing through the canyon. Goosebumps prickle along his bare shoulders. Brick snores softly, slightly muffled by the pillow.

Mordecai extracts himself from Brick’s grasp and peers through his window. The sky is bright, blazing with billions of stars, but everything else is shadow. Still dark enough to go without his goggles. He slips on his clothes and descends from his perch to the ground level, his boots crunching on hard dirt and sand. In their make-shift kitchen, he fiddles with the gas stove and starts his half-asleep routine. Boil water, let it get too hot. Pour over instant coffee mix. Gag at the burnt bitter taste, but sip it all the same. Mug in hand, Mordecai wanders across the yard to Tina’s garage. The door was left ajar, light pouring out through the crack, and he ducks underneath to find Tina asleep at her workbench. Enrique IV snores beneath her feet, paws twitching in dreams. Tina had fallen asleep holding some sort of explosive contraption, something she’d no doubt be begging to show off in a few days. Her desk is scattered with blueprints and scribbled notes, all beneath an overhead lamp. Mordecai tousles her hair and sets the bomb on the desk before heading back to the yard.

When Mordecai climbs the rungs of the ladder, carefully with coffee in-hand, he hears Brick stir. The bed groans and creaks when the man rolls over, reaching out for Mordecai in his sleep. Mordecai finds himself smiling. He never thought a guy like him could be wanted. _ Deserved _to be wanted. And yet Brick proves him wrong. He does that a lot, actually. Proves to him that his cynicism isn’t always deserved. There’s love in the world. There are second chances. 

He snatches his goggles off the shelf before slowly ascending the rickety iron ladder just outside his room. Back in the day, he could probably scrabble and climb his way up to the roof without it, but now his bones ache more days than they don’t. Brick’s started to point out the gray in his beard, how nice the salt-and-pepper look suits him. Half a century was an accomplishment on Pandora, a reward for doing something right. He always thought that meant traveling alone, a lone wolf with no attachments, no vulnerabilities. But he had been proven wrong again.

Once he’s at the top, he walks a few feet before sitting on the edge of the roof, groaning at the complaints in his hips and knees. It’s getting brighter now as the sunrise nears and he can already feel the strain in his eyes. He snaps on his goggles and his eyes relax in an instant. The things are a blessing; he doesn’t know how he ever lived without them. Not only is daylight tolerable, but colors can be differentiated. Everything looks washed out, like the color has been injected with gray, but there _ is _color. That’s more than he could say for nearly his entire life.

The goggles are heavily tinted so he doesn’t see Brick coming up behind him, but he sure as hell hears him. Those heavy, thunking footsteps across the roof, the structure complaining under his weight. Mordecai sips his burnt coffee as Brick puts a hand on his shoulder.

“You alright?” he asks, voice still groggy with sleep. Of course. Checking on Mordecai before anything else. Even after all this time, the affection still makes his face burn.

Mordecai mumbles into his mug. “Mmhm. Just a bad dream.”

With a huff, Brick sits beside him and dangles his legs off the roof. He never asks Mordecai to elaborate, just nods and listens if he wants to talk it through. Mordecai doesn’t, this time. He’s looking down at the structures beneath them.

“You really built all this, huh?” Mordecai exhales with a sigh and hands the mug to Brick. He takes a polite sip but wrinkles his nose at the bitter taste. “Wish I was ripped like you, woulda given you more of a hand. All my scrawny ass could do was bitch and hold the nails in place.”

“That ain’t true,” Brick says, then interrupts with a yawn. “You did plenty.” He has always been slow to wake, uncharacteristically soft-spoken while he’s still drowsy.

Mordecai sets the mug down beside him and scoffs. “Yeah, like what?”

“You made it a home.”

“_Tonto. _When did you get so smooth?” Brick only reacts to the punch on his shoulder with a sheepish grin. Mordecai is smiling, too. For maybe half a minute, they sit together in comfortable silence.

“Is this how you pictured retirement?” Mordecai finally asks, feeling the cool metal of the roof beneath his palm. “Settlin’ down on Pandora with a bomb-crazy kid, a grumpy old man, and his bird?”

Brick’s hand settles over his. “Sure is.”

Mordecai doesn’t deflect it this time. He breathes in the sincerity in Brick’s tone, the weight in his words. _ You made it a home. _

“Our home,” he says aloud. Brick nods and rubs his thumb along Mordecai’s knuckles. Mordecai chews on the inside of his cheek before he speaks again. “All that shit was worth it to get here.”

Brick doesn’t have to ask what he means; they’ve gone through nearly all of it together.

There’s the sound of shuffling fabric, then Mordecai is leaning against Brick’s shoulder. He weighs hardly anything, but Brick is always acutely aware of where their bodies touch. Mordecai slips his hand into Brick’s and squeezes, saying everything with no words at all. The sky is a muted, dusty pink through his goggles, a beauty he never thought he’d be able to see. But he can’t stop glancing up at Brick. Despite the lines accumulating around his eyes and mouth, he wears his age well. The stubble across his jaw has lightened, the hair poking out from beneath his bandana tinged with gray. Some people’s eyes get hardened with age, but not Brick’s. Somehow his eyes got softer. More kind. This world hadn’t broken him, hadn’t changed who he was at heart. Truly the strongest man on Pandora.

Brick finally notices Mordecai’s gaze and kisses the top of his head. “I love you, Mordy.”

“Love you, too, _ cariño_.”

The sun breaks above the hills of Devil’s Razor, bringing a new day’s light to Boomtown, their sanctuary. Their home.

**Author's Note:**

> as always, i'm on twitter @transmordecai if you wanna hear from me more! thank you for reading :-)


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